And also give thanks for those things we don’t quite see as blessings. In other words, give thanks for everything, good or bad. I thank God for my illness because it has given me insights into the workings of God in my life. His grace has been sufficient.
AMEN, Mary. If only pleasant things happened to us, how would we learn to trust Him?
"O LORD, be gracious unto us; we have waited for thee: be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble." -- Isaiah 33:2
I doubt that God is the cause of your illness. The Protestants have a perverse notion that God is the source of evil (they get it from the OT myths), and that He uses evil for greater good.
After all, we are the sick, and He is the physician. Doctors don't give you diseases. They cure them.
But I agree most sgtrongly that we should give thanks to God, no matter what happens to us in our fallen world. He didn't cause it be fallen. We did.